Ruby creator Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) has worked on GNU, Ruby, and other free software projects for more than two decades. He won the Award for the Advancement of Free Software, which is presented to "an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software." Previous winners include Python author Guido van Rossum and Postfix email system developer Wietse Venema.

The 2011 Award for Projects of Social Benefit went to GNU Health, a free software project that works with health professions to serve the underprivileged. "GNU Health has been adopted as the Health and Hospital Information System of choice by the United Nations University," the announcement says. Luis Falcon accepted the award on the project's behalf. Previous winners include the Tor project, Wikipedia, Groklaw and Creative Commons.

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